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Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

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Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#401

Post by rtpg »

legitster wrote: post #81
causal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. People use Google because it's the default, not because they will go out of their way to keep using it. The minute Apple changes the iPhone default, all but a few iPhone users stop using Google.

> People use Google because it's the default, not because they will go out of their way to keep using it. Is this actually true? Microsoft has bent over backwards trying making it inconvenient to get Chrome + Google on any new device. There's even the whole "Edge is the #1 browser to install Chrome" meme. Normies just really like Google.

People have buy-in to Chrome that I think might be more than the buy-in to the search engine at this point. People like their set of extensions, and know how to use it.

Meanwhile if the search bar works when typing things in and gives you good results, I think a lot of people will be fine with whatever.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#402

Post by utopcell »

throwaway88222 wrote: post #283
hugh_kagi wrote: post #21

We face a number of challenges simply letting our paying customers change their search engine: 1. On iOS the list of allowed search engines is simply baked into OS, we have a fiddly extension that hooks outbound calls to /search and redirects them but I wish we didn't need to. 2. On Chrome, we use an extension to change the default search engine and enable search auto-complete etc, but Google has a policy that such a…

As someone who worked at Mozilla, on Firefox browsers, I can guarantee you that none of this is a coincidence. I have never seen the search contract so I don't think I am breaking any kind of NDA but I have been close enough to engineering and browser planning and product management to know that Google dictates (negotiates?) in great detail every aspect of search in the browser. This is not a simple "you can use Goog…

> Mozilla would die.

Mozilla changed its default search engine to Yahoo during Marissa Mayer times and Mozilla didn't die -- it probably made more money by doing so. Mozilla could switch its default to Bing if Microsoft paid more.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#403

Post by redserk »

immibis wrote: post #375
malfist wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the power of monopoly, or in this case duopoly. You don't get to choose to not buy into the platform

But you do. You get to choose to buy into the other platform, which is significantly more open. If for some reason you choose not to, then you obviously don't value openness very much.

Have you been paying attention to Google’s moves the last few years or are you just here to blast Apple?

They’re not the forever-open platform you’re purporting them to be.

Look at the increasing push for device attestation via SafetyNet or whatever it is called now.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#404

Post by utopcell »

cletus wrote: post #203
nabla9 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what's going to happen? Apple might make their own search engine. Apple has a team that's been creating a next-generation search engine codenamed Pegasus under John Giannandrea. They already have search engines for App Store, Maps, Apple TV and News and Spotlight. Apple web search development worked as bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google. Google paid them $20 billion per year to not compete as mu…

We forget that there was at least a decade of several "Google killers" a year [1]. It's a graveyeard. That was 2009 too. The volume slowed down but people are still trying (and failing) [2]. Microsoft has of course tried but Bing is only really propped up by Microsoft's deep pockets. It's not a profitable enterprise (AFAIK). And this is with Microsoft using every trick they can to bypass EU and US consent decrees and…

Fascinating links, I had almost forgotten about these engines.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#405

Post by utopcell »

nabla9 wrote: post #121
cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

> So what's going to happen? Apple might make their own search engine. Apple has a team that's been creating a next-generation search engine codenamed Pegasus under John Giannandrea. They already have search engines for App Store, Maps, Apple TV and News and Spotlight. Apple web search development worked as bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google. Google paid them $20 billion per year to not compete as mu…

So long as they don't prevent users from switching to Google, I'd honestly like to see that search engine. And on the grand scheme of things, maybe it's good for Google to have some pressure against making choices that lead to search results quality decline.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#406

Post by stubish »

immibis wrote: post #375
malfist wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the power of monopoly, or in this case duopoly. You don't get to choose to not buy into the platform

But you do. You get to choose to buy into the other platform, which is significantly more open. If for some reason you choose not to, then you obviously don't value openness very much.

If only the world was so simple and one dimensional and we never needed to compromise. Lets have 5 phones, each representing the pinnacle of a single attribute I care about, none of them actually meeting my needs.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#407

Post by crazygringo »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #197
crazygringo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, defaults aren't incredibly powerful. Chrome utterly dominates Edge on Windows, despite Edge being default. How do you explain that? The reality is that people know what they like, and most will switch to the thing they like most. Especially when it costs nothing.

Google: Hands 20 billion to Apple to keep defaults to Google. You: No, defaults aren't incredibly powerful.

Those are not incompatible statements at all.

Obviously, defaults matter to some degree. They have a price. Google and Apple are companies with market caps in the trillions, and at their scale the default has a price in billions, since a small shift redirects a ton of ad revenue. That's fine.

But they're not "incredibly powerful", which implies that most users won't change them. As I pointed out, most users do change from Edge to Chrome.

If defaults were so "incredibly powerful", Edge would be winning. Obviously, therefore, they're not. Defaults have a small-to-medium amount of power. (Which, at Apple+Google scale, happens to be a lot of cash.)

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#408

Post by utopcell »

mucle6 wrote: post #157
nabla9 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what's going to happen? Apple might make their own search engine. Apple has a team that's been creating a next-generation search engine codenamed Pegasus under John Giannandrea. They already have search engines for App Store, Maps, Apple TV and News and Spotlight. Apple web search development worked as bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google. Google paid them $20 billion per year to not compete as mu…

If apple wanted to or thought they could make a profitable search engine, wouldn't they have already done it?

They've been trying to make a car for the past decade, arguably an easier task than making a search engine.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#410

Post by trentnix »

bee_rider wrote: post #234
trentnix wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to figure it out.

Are we supposing that Google made their payment conditional on obfuscating the ability to switch search engines?

No, I’m supposing that Apple knows they have more control if they obfuscate the ability to switch. And more control is more valuable to Google or whoever else wants to pony up to be the “default”.
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